Mental age is a concept in relation to intelligence, expressed as the age at which a child is performing intellectually. The mental age of the child that is tested is the same as the average age at which normal children achieve a particular score.
However, a mental age result on an intelligence test does not mean that children function at their "mental age level" in all aspects of life. For instance, a gifted six-year-old child can still in some ways function as a three-year-old child. Mental age was once considered a controversial concept.
Read more about Mental Age: Mental Age and IQ
Famous quotes containing the words mental and/or age:
“... work is only part of a man’s life; play, family, church, individual and group contacts, educational opportunities, the intelligent exercise of citizenship, all play a part in a well-rounded life. Workers are men and women with potentialities for mental and spiritual development as well as for physical health. We are paying the price today of having too long sidestepped all that this means to the mental, moral, and spiritual health of our nation.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“Is suffering so very serious? I have come to doubt it. It may be quite childish, a sort of undignified pastime—I’m referring to the kind of suffering a man inflicts on a woman or a woman on a man. It’s extremely painful. I agree that it’s hardly bearable. But I very much fear that this sort of pain deserves no consideration at all. It’s no more worthy of respect than old age or illness.”
—Colette [Sidonie Gabrielle Colette] (1873–1954)